Page 98 of Pain

Maxar threw his hands up in the air. “Kidding. Kidding. Don’t get your fluff in a knot.”

Zandren’s growl was less intense this time as he resumed his digging.

“It’s okay, Pooh Bear,” Omaera said, stroking Zandren’s head as his long nailsscratched against stones in the earth.

“What’s he looking for anyway?” Maxar asked.

Omaera watched with the same intense curiosity. “I was wondering the same thing.”

“The entrance,” I replied.

“It’s underground?” Omaera exclaimed. Then she smacked her forehead with the heel of her palm. “Ignore me. I know what caves are. Ugh!” She rolled her eyes. “What I mean is, he has to dig to find the entrance? Why? Has it been that many years since anybody has been here?”

I nodded. “Yes, there is that part. But also, there is a handle that appears to have been buried in a long-ago rockslide.”

“Ahandle?” Maxar asked.

I made a noise of confirmation in my throat just as Zandren grunted and hooked his gigantic paw around the handle roughly two feet into the hole he dug.

“You’re telling me this is basically like a giant garage door that we have to lift up?” Omaera asked. “And that’s the handle?”

“Essentially,” I replied as Zandren grunted and groaned while heaving on the handle.

“Do you need help, Pooh Bear?” Omaera asked, stepping forward and reaching down into the hole. She grunted too, straining to yank it up.

Soon, all of us had our hands in the hole and were pulling up.

“You’re sure this is it?” Maxar asked, wedged between Omaera and me. “There isn’t another handle somewhere?”

“This is it,” I answered.

“Oh! I felt it budge,” Omaera said with glee. “Did you feel that?”

We all did. That bit of movement galvanized our efforts, and eventually, we were able to wiggle the bottom of the door free from the earth enough that it wasn’t compacted by it. Zandren nudged us all out of the way, making us stand back, then he dropped his lower body into the hole and with his toe-claws, he hooked them into the handle and pulled upward. The entrance was quite large. Three or four times the size of a standard garage. But it was all magic enhancedwith shields and spells cast over it so no human could everstumbleon the handle and get into the cave. The black wall of the mountain moved upward like a filmstrip as Zandren pulled up. Omaera gaped and gasped.

Maxar watched, but with far less fascination.

Zandren switched to pushing upward on the bottom of the door with his feet until I was able to grab the handle and guide the door up enough for us to all duck under.

It was dark inside. So Maxar and Omaera created torches for us, illuminating the enormous, dripping cavern. Sharp pointed millennia-old stalactites hung from the ceiling while their counterparts—stalagmites—rose up from the floor. It was warm inside, and easy enough to feel the magic pulsing in the damp air.

“Let there be light,” Maxar said, dramatically throwing a big blue flame-ball into the air where it burst into a million tiny pieces and clung to the ceiling like stars in the sky.

“Cool,” Omaera marveled. “I want to learn how to do that.” She conjured her own ball of flames, this one a light blue color, and she threw it up into the air. “Let there be light.” It didn’t break up into as many pieces as Maxar’s and her stars fizzled out in a few seconds, but it was a good first attempt.

She kept trying as we wandered around the cave. Zandren and I pointed out important areas, like the council seats, which were just chairs carved into the slate. There was a large hole in the center of the room and nobody really knew how far down it went. It was rumored that it was a portal to Hell that had long ago lost its magic, and anybody who dared to jump in would just be falling for eternity. But the magic we felt near the other portals, let alone the humming, wasn’t there.

“Can’t we just throw Lerris and Howar in there?” Omaera asked, pointing to the hole.

Maxar chuckled. “Fuck, I love how much of a sexy psycho you’re becoming.”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you just said nobody knows where it actually goes or how deep it is. So in theory, we wouldn’t be committing murder, right?”

“Morally gray is a fantastic fucking shade on you, babe.” Maxar came up and planted a noisykiss on her.

She pushed him away playfully. “Where would we put the blood cage?”

I pointed out the corner that would suit it best, far enough away from the black hole to the unknown that nobody could accuse Omaera of accidentally throwing her uncle or the Vampire King into the hole.

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